Minority Poll
by asheniel
Summary: Lance contemplates the bigotry of mutants as well as its parallelism to ideas such as racism, homophobia, etc. "...I think that each one of us has, in one way or another, found some way to degrade another person over attributes that are inevitable--wheth


::Authors Notes:: Two fics posted in two nights? o.O Weird. Well this is from Lance's perspective, and…yeah. Please read Paris in Flames! *begs* Other than that, enjoy :)

Minority Poll

By asheniel

I've come to the realization that we've screwed over all great things we were destined for, lost any chance we had at redemption (in terms of God), and have all been reduced to faceless, nameless, shameless exteriors lacking any internal structure that could be broken/bent/moved. I'm saying this not out of alleged hatred for this world and I don't believe that I've been wronged out of anything that should belong to me. If nothing else can be said, I could admit that I probably do deserve it and much worse (how many times have I made a victim out of some pseudo-innocent fool…?). I guess the best word is rape; the coercion of one made by another (or more) into unsolicited intercourse. In non-literal terms, I mean. 

I could complain that it's wrong; that it falls under the 'wicked' spectrum, along with other untouchables such as child molestation, incest, homicide, abortion, terrorism, etcetera etcetera. In all honesty, if I really believed it, I'd be forced to get a gun and blow the back of my head out. Real crimes have real victims, not simpering, whining, weeping, fallen bastards like so many of us have been reduced to becoming. Real victims: people that are either dead or too young/traumatized/paralyzed to acknowledge their 'victim' status. Take incest, or example. You could say that there is no victim, but we all know that continual inbreeding leads to weak bloodlines, which consequently lead to defective children (who never _asked_ their mother to marry her first cousin). But then the argument is that sickness and disease have nothing to do with incest. 

In any case, my initial point was this: real crimes have real victims, and in correlation to that, I—_we_—are not victims. Targets to ignorance and bigotry, maybe, but clearly not helpless. Because if you're old/smart enough to know what the hell is happening and clever enough to grow and _learn_ from it, to better yourself as a person, who was the bastard that dubbed you a victim in the first place? 

Hatred and fear of mutants is understandable, as much as it bugs me. Besides, it would just make me a hypocrite to declare the world as an evil place depriving all persons under the First Amendment an equal opportunity to liberty, justice, and so on. How many times have I thought/said/acted in physically violent ways in accordance to my jaded ideals that someone else was inferior to me because they were different? Me: the tough, badass, poverty-stricken, Caucasian teenager with botched genes. And to think that what I had once subjected others (others that may not have even deserved it) to what I hate the most about people, as a population? It can really make a guy reevaluate his underestimation of the term, 'sick to your stomach.' 

If I was perfect (which I don't even want to _think_ about thinking about…) then maybe I could stand on my imaginary pedestal, smile and shake my head sadly, and wholly and neverendingly put on mild facades of acceptance and understanding. But I'm not. I understand just fine—maybe even better than any pretentious pacifistic fountain-of-knowledge Professor Xavier—but I'm only human (unlike the other guy…but I think he's brainwashed himself into believing that he's God). Heaven forbid that I lose my temper and smash someone's face in, or avalanche a couple buildings down, or otherwise do something utterly stupid that I would regret five minutes from the moment. Like I said, I'm human—we _all_ are—but I think some of us tend to forget that sometimes. Some of us meaning, or course, the X-Men. 

When I was young and stupid, my great explanation for the friction between our two groups was this: they were rich, we weren't; they got all the breaks, and we didn't get any. Back then, it was a cruel world and I _was_ a victim. But I've come to realize one thing, if nothing else. The main difference between us is that we (meaning the Brotherhood) understand but don't bother to suppress our emotions, while the X-Men don't understand but like to flounce around with giant 'I'm in pain, see my silent suffering!' signs on their chests. 

I've lost my cool more than a couple times. I'm temperamental, but who's denying it? I'm not the one faking myself out, putting on masquerades of kindness and patience and understanding when I don't (completely) understand. Or maybe I do, but anyway, self-containment is never healthy. If I'm mad, I'll curse, I'll yell, I'll hit someone or something if that'll make me feel better. The problem with the X-Men is that they'll do the same things in their heads and (very, very, rarely) actually make their feeling/ill-will known, then _chastise_ us like we're naughty little boys with inclinations to stupidity. Because _we_ don't pretend to understand something that they don't, either. 

All I can say is, whatever separates us, whether that be my earlier theory or our differentiating levels of pretentiousness or the simple fact that they're led by a bald guy and us by a blue-skinned woman, _I'm glad_. Enough said. 

I suppose people's bigotry toward mutants could be paralleled to just about anything else: racism, homophobia, sexism, and so forth. It's wrong, God's not loving us when we do it, but we do it anyway because we're stupid/jealous/bitter/scared/uninformed/just plain hateful. When I was younger, I always used to target black people; not because they ever _did_ anything to me, but because it was just the natural assumption of all the whites in the neighborhood. We were better because our skin wasn't dark—we were allowed to call them 'niggers' and they would have to accept it. If one of them were to call us 'krackers', though, we had every right to kick his/her ass. I'm not sure what twisted demigod grounded these ideas into our redneck hearts, but I sure as hell believed in them. 

No matter how open-minded we all think we are, I think that each one of us has, in one way or another, found some way to degrade another person over attributes that are inevitable—whether we meant to or not. Who hasn't ever used the word "gay" to describe something or someone annoying? Who hasn't ever seen two guys making out on the sidewalk and thought, "that's rude, couldn't they save it?" when you wouldn't even have looked twice if it was a guy and a girl? Then, on the contrary, maybe something like that would fascinate you—so much so that you would take a liking to it over a heterosexual relationship (although you would never do it yourself). In my world, both would be methods of discrimination toward gays. Although neither are particularly harmful or hateful, they're ways in which we distinguish someone in accordance to their sexual orientation, (though maybe not as extreme as homophobia). And we think less (or more) of them because of it.

Likewise, the same thing goes for the whole mutant thing. I wouldn't want someone to like me _because_ of my X-gene. In fact, I would probably hate it more than being hated for it. And, like the word "gay" that is often used to describe someone/something invalid, the anti-mutant sentiments have been grounded into all our heads, whether we love mutants or hate them or are one of them. So I can understand if people hate or dislike or unconsciously think me subordinate. I've done the same thing, I've known the feeling, I _still _know the feeling. Maybe I don't like it, but I almost certain that all the black people I've ever targeted never liked it, either.

I think the only _truly_ unfortunate thing in this entire thing is the reason that I began by saying, "I've come to the realization that we've screwed over all great things we were destined for, lost any chance we had at redemption (in terms of God), and have all been reduced to faceless, nameless, shameless exteriors lacking any internal structure that could be broken/bent/moved…" That would be what I've spent nearly two pages doing—_accepting_ the bigotry, dogmatism, discrimination in accordance to a defective gene/ethnic background/sexual preference. Maybe on this one, the X-Men are right (would that make them right on everything that I've gone out of my way to contradict…?). I think that in a perfect world (which is most definitely _not_ in existence at the moment) they would be right. But it's not a perfect world, so they're not.

The truth is, consent/said understanding of prejudice in its many forms is probably nearly as bad as doing the actual prejudice. But I think we're all wanton of a little bit of sanity in our lives, so we'll sacrifice our self-regard for that. Would that make us "faceless, nameless, shameless exteriors lacking any internal structure that could be broken/bent/moved"? Yes, as unfair as that is. We've screwed our futures over enough so that we can't go back to being the arrogant egotists that we all used to be (in this case, the term egotist would be admirable). And we've most probably lost all chance of redemption we had with God, because why the hell would he want a bunch of indolent slackers in heaven? 

In conclusion, I've fully realized that we've screwed over all great things we were destined for, lost any chance we had at redemption (in terms of God), and have all been reduced to faceless, nameless, shameless exteriors lacking any internal structure that could be broken/bent/moved.

~end of story~


End file.
